Progressives Grouse About Obama's Supreme Court Pick - Politico [View all]

Progressives grouse about Obama's Supreme Court pick
Liberals lament the lost opportunity to rally the base around a more progressive nominee.
By Sarah Wheaton - Politico
03/16/16 05:35 PM EDT

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President Barack Obama’s liberal base is ready to go to bat for his Supreme Court nominee. But they’re not so fired up about it.

Obama nominated Merrick Garland, a highly accomplished white man with a centrist reputation, to fill a balance-swinging vacancy on the Supreme Court on Thursday. He checks off all the boxes as far as traditional judicial credentials go. But that’s a letdown to some of the Democratic grassroots groups who were hoping to see Obama add more diversity to the court. And while his choice might make it awkward for Republicans to say no, organizers warn that Garland might not light much of a fire in Democrats’ bellies when it’s time to churn out protesters and voters.

"It's deeply disappointing that President Obama failed to use this opportunity to add the voice of another progressive woman of color to the Supreme Court, and instead put forward a nominee seemingly designed to appease intransigent Republicans rather than inspire the grassroots he'll need to get that nominee through the Senate gauntlet,” said Democracy for America’s Charles Chamberlain in a statement.

Even groups that weren’t so vocally negative put out statements that grudgingly pushed Republicans to confirm the nominee. Progressives had been salivating at the prospect of replacing Justice Antonin Scalia, whose influence they reviled, with one of their own. They’re not so sure Garland is one of them.

For Obama, the fact that Garland doesn’t score any political points beyond his resume and record is evidence that, as the president put it in the Rose Garden on Thursday, he is taking “this process seriously.”

The White House has touted the fact that Garland has more experience on the federal judiciary than any other Supreme Court nominee in history. But the left isn’t seeing enough of what it wants in his paper trail, and an official with the online activist organization Demand Progress said it hasn’t even settled on whether to back Garland.

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More: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/merrick-garland-supreme-court-progressives-220882

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